New Arrested Development series confirmed

ACCLAIMED TV series Arrested Development is set to return for a new season and a movie.

After five years of hoping, wishing and praying for a Bluth family reunion, devoted "Arrested Development" fans were rejoicing Sunday following confirmation from the show's creator that there will be a new series and a film.

Mitch Hurwitz, who also served as an executive producer on the FOX series, said the show will return for a short season of 10 episodes before it is adapted into a feature film.

Hurwitz made the announcement while speaking alongside the members of the cast at an Arrested Development reunion at the New Yorker Festival.The event brought together stars Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, Michael Cera, David Cross, Portia de Rossi, Tony Hale, Alia Shawkat, Jeffrey Tambor and Jessica Walter, The New York Times reported.

Bateman confirmed the news on Twitter, writing: "It's true. We will do 10 episodes and the movie. Probably shoot them all together next summer for a release in early '13. VERY excited!"

The show, which centered on the wealthy and dysfunctional Bluth family, ran on FOX for three seasons from 2003 to 2006.

It was a critics' favorite and received six Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe but failed to establish a broad audience before being cancelled.

Hurwitz said he and executive producer Ron Howard, who served as the narrator for all 53 episodes of the sitcom, "had been talking about this for ages and trying to get this going."

"Just creatively, I have been working on the screenplay [for a movie] for a long time and found that as time went by, there was so much more to the story," Hurwitz said.

"In fact, where everyone's been for five years became a big part of the story. So in working on the screenplay, I found even if I just gave five minutes per character to that back story, we were halfway through the movie before the characters got together.

"We're trying to do a limited-run series into the movie. We're basically hoping to do nine or 10 episodes, with almost one character per episode."

Rumors of an Arrested Development movie have persisted since the show went off the air in 2006, with fans launching Facebook pages and online petitions to push the project along.

It was not made clear by Hurwitz which studio is backing the project or on what network the TV series will screen.